Page 6 of The Blade in the Ashes
I hoped we would get through this—I really did—I just wasn’t positive we would.
Still, I returned her soft smile before pushing out from behind the desk. My hips ached as I stood, cramped from spending too many hours crouching over the mahogany tabletop staring at the worn, ink-stained map and scheming.
“How’s Kent?” I asked Elaina, coming around the table.
“Conscious,” she replied as she followed me out of the tiny room that I’d been locking myself away in. “So better.”
We entered the living space of the manor, which they had converted into a makeshift infirmary. Blankets covered the floor—patients in various stages of consciousness atop them.
Kent rested at the far end of the room, closest to the hearth. He was shirtless, gauze wrapped around an alarmingly large portion of his chest, but he was, in fact, awake, which was a relief. He met my gaze and bowed his head in acknowledgment.
“And Camilla?” I asked Elaina overmy shoulder.
The woman was bent over a young man who had lost his leg during the fight. Sweat pebbled across his wrinkled brow. She dabbed a damp rag against his neck, and a muscle in my jaw twitched unhappily. That rag would do him no good now.
That boy would not live through the night.
Even I learned to recognize the signs of infection during the Great War.
“She’s helping, Clay. She’s been awake just about as long as you have, and she hasn’t complained once.”
There was a sharpness in her tone I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard from her before. I turned to her with a lifted brow, but she had already shifted away, moving to comfort someone who was losing their breakfast in the waste bin.
Gods.
The smell in here left my nostrils burning.
I had almost forgotten how insidious war was, how it consumed all of your senses. Even when the battle had ended, it was still all you could hear and smell. It was all you could think about.
And this war had only just begun.
“Clay.” Iris stood at the main door to the manor in her natural form, dark skin and smoothed-back hair. She still wore those tight-fitting black clothes she preferred for fighting—a blade strapped to her left thigh. “We need to make a plan.”
Her eyes flickered to Camilla briefly, hatred burning in them as she looked at the woman who had once been her friend.
A part of my heart twinged as I took in the rage in that expression.
Camilla had once been… special to me. A friend mostly, but occasionally more than that. Yes, what she did was unforgivable on many accounts, but Thea was insistent that Camilla had been a victim, and I had to trust that Thea understood the power of Gods more than the rest of us.
So, I was working to offer Camilla compassion.
Iris wasn’t.
Iris would never be friends with Camilla again.
I was a little worried she would never be friends with Thea again either. I suspected she wouldn’t ever forgive my Goddess for setting Camilla free.
My cousin cleared her throat and looked away even as her voice carried to both Elaina and Camilla. “You two should come too.”
Camilla’s dark eyes widened, but she didn’t protest. Elaina reached down a hand to help her to her feet, and the two followed us silently into the dining room.
Rankor was already waiting for us, hands on his hips as he stared down at the map on the table, this one larger and more elaborate than the one I’d grown accustomed to inspecting. A shadow lined his jaw, and he scratched at it absently as Camilla closed the door behind us. I watched his gaze fall over her, but whatever he thought about her presence he kept to himself.
“I think we’ve taken more than enough time to lick our wounds,” Iris said emotionlessly, crossing her arms over her chest.
I hadn’t seen her much in the three days we’d been at the Manor. Actually, I hadn’t seen any of them. I’d needed to be alone to force the beast inside me to remain dormant instead of flying back to the castle and tearing it apart until Thea was safe.
But now Iris was right; we were running out of time.
